1. Introduction

How did Mark de Lat and Aldo van Duivenboden end up starting BCorpTwente and what is the approach to the learning-working-doing project? The focus is their ambition: “Better business models, a better world”.

How did this come about?

Mark met Gert Disberg at the end of 2015 and they got talking about social developments and the role of entrepreneurs and administrators. Initially, they talked about the role of government. The idea of a government providing solutions to major social issues, such as energy transition, seems appealing, but the conversation took a turn with the realisation that entrepreneurs should look closer to home.

No sooner said than done. Mark and Gert had various meetings with entrepreneurs. Many discussions followed, thematic meetings were held with entrepreneurs, and a “conscious tour” was organised through the region with the aim of investigating examples of conscious entrepreneurship.

In the quest for (more) conscious business practices, Mark met Charles Vinke for the first time in 2016. At the time, Charles Vinke was director of Asito. Charles told Mark about B Corp: a useful tool to make conscious entrepreneurship measurable and concrete.

In April 2017, Gert Disberg, Peter ter Horst, Hans Oude Avenhuis, Kaj Morel and Mark de Lat founded the Stichting Betekeniseconomie in Twente [Conscious Economy Foundation]. The goal was, and is, to stimulate the transformation and transition to a conscious society in Twente, by: • Making people aware of what the conscious economy entails and means; • Exchanging experiences about putting the conscious economy into practice; • Initiating experiments regarding the conscious economy and facilitating initiatives relating to the conscious economy.

B Corp kept whizzing around Mark's head from the moment he met Charles Vinke and it all fell into place at a meeting with Aldo van Duivenboden of Saxion Conscious Business Lab. At that time Aldo was working on integrating conscious entrepreneurship into the curriculum of the Saxion International Business School. He too was inspired by the B Corp idea of "business as a force for good". During the first meeting, participants were full of energy, and it was decided to start working with students and entrepreneurs on B Corp. On 5 June 2019, a B Corp introductory meeting was organised for Twente entrepreneurs, administrators, teachers and students. Enthusiasm grew. The “birth” of BCorpTwente was accelerated thanks to a financial contribution from the Agenda for Twente.

BCorpTwente

As a result of these meetings, we soon concluded that the it-takes-one-to-know-one effect is of great importance. People, entrepreneurs, want to work together to “do the right thing”. Entrepreneurs like to have a peek behind the scenes of each other’s business, especially if they already know each other from the regional networks. BCorpTwente was designed with this in mind. We build small-scale, local learning groups with a diverse composition allowing everyone to learn from each other. After the support we received from the Agenda for Twente, we started with the first learning group at the beginning of 2020. The first group of participants consisted of representatives from Carel Lurvink, Demcon, De Driesprong Physiotherapy Practice, Gebroeders van der Geest, ReintenInfra, Saxion, Stratek, Switch, Saxion Conscious Business Lab and Eshuis Accountants and Advisers.

A quote from the interview with Kaj Morel and Mark de Lat in the Tubantia newspaper of 27 March 2017

For many entrepreneurs it will sound like airy-fairy idealism. But according to Mark te Lat, co-owner of Eshuis Accountants and Advisers, making money is not a taboo in the Twente Conscious Economy: "Of course not. It just shouldn't be an end in itself. When we advise entrepreneurs at Eshuis, we also pose the question as to how their company can contribute to building a stronger socio-economic region. That results in very different conversations than when it's just about next year's profits. And that long-term thinking, that co-responsibility for your physical environment, leads to better companies in a stronger region. Everyone benefits.”

We now firmly believe that we can create a better world through better business models. And by now, we are convinced that many entrepreneurs want this as well but are walking around wondering how to approach this. The B Corp standard has proven to be a useful tool in answering this “how” question.

Better business models, a better world

We are convinced that SMEs are the driving force behind the shift towards conscious entrepreneurship and the transition to a conscious economy. Here we wholeheartedly endorse Kaj Morel's statement in an interview with VPRO Tegenlicht1: “We wrongly believe that large companies are enormously important. But the vast majority of business is comprised of SMEs. If they can provide an impulse for the conscious economy by uniting in cooperatives and local economies, we can achieve that transformation very quickly.”

We would like this workbook to help SME entrepreneurs answer the “how question” of conscious entrepreneurship. In the experience meanwhile gained with the B CorpTwente standard, we see that this tool gives entrepreneurs a boost to take steps towards conscious entrepreneurship. For inspiration, this book contains interviews with a number of participants in BCorpTwente. These interviews were previously published on www.twente.com and are intended to share the experiences gained with fellow entrepreneurs. The participants in the interviews are happy to share their experiences with you personally, so please feel free to contact them.

We hope that this book will contribute to strengthening the collaboration between education, research and business. For this reason, three Saxion professors share their vision of conscious entrepreneurship and demonstrate how they can use their research assignments to help entrepreneurs in the region find practical answers to complex issues. B Corp is an organisation of US origin. The impact assessment is an open-source instrument that is freely accessible to anyone. With this book we hope to make B Corp certification more accessible to entrepreneurs.

1 Source: Morel, VPRO Tegenlicht, The Conscious Economy, 2020